In performing processing operations on graphics data, the multi-dimensional nature of the graphics data often results in frequently recurring instances of reading pixel data of a pixel map (e.g., a two-dimensional array of pixels making up an image, a texture, etc.) from noncontiguous locations in storage. This arises from a common tendency to store pixel data of pixels of a pixel map in a manner organized to follow the arrangement of rows and columns of pixels into which the pixels themselves are organized in that pixel map. Such organization often means that pixel data for pixels that are adjacent in one dimension are usually stored in contiguous storage locations such that they are addressable at adjacent address locations, while pixel data for pixels that are adjacent in another dimension are usually stored in noncontiguous storage locations.
Thus, for example, when retrieving pixel data of pixels along a common row, the pixel data for adjacent pixels along that row may be stored at adjacent addressable storage locations in a storage, while the pixel data for adjacent pixels in other rows above or below is not. Yet, multi-dimensional graphics operations that require data from pixels that are adjacent to a particular pixel in multiple dimensions require retrieval of pixel data for those adjacent pixels, whether the storage locations corresponding to those adjacent pixels are contiguously located in a storage or not.
Typical prefetching mechanisms, whether implemented in a compiler or within a prefetching component of a processor component, do not recognize the multi-dimensional nature of graphics data and therefore cannot predict addresses of noncontiguous storage locations within a storage from which pixel data should be prefetched. This lack of ability to prefetch pixel data from noncontiguous storage locations results in a slowing of the rate in which multi-dimensional graphics operations may be performed, as latencies of accesses to noncontiguous storage locations must be awaited before performance of such graphics operations may be completed.